Long-term Goals

Vocal Goals

On the vocal front I have at last put together a list of songs that will form my 'available' repertoire. It is a list of 21 numbers falling into three categories:

• Jazz - all English-language classics.
• Others - 3 French items and two English items
• German items - one song from my Grandmothers collection of music that I brought home after my Mum's death.

The full list is on a separate page. I aim to have several of these 'concert ready' before too long.

I work with play-back tapes, some that I have bought and others that I have been given by a friend. I would love to have a fellow musician to work with in real-time! One can get 'trapped' in the regularity of a play-back, and the transition from this to a live group of musicians is really difficult. Suddenly all the clues one has learned are of no use at all! Similarly it is very difficult to be creative with a tape that it is always the same - no opportunity to change tempo or experiment with changes of key....... On the plus side, the quality of playbacks these days is so good that 'Have play-back can do concert!!!'

When I am learning a new song I often go to You Tubes and listen to a variety of performances of the same song. This gives me ideas of what is possible. One thing I try not to do is to mimic an artist. I learned very early on the importance of letting any audience hear me and not an impersonation of someone else.

Guitar Goals

On the guitar front, my immediate goal is to get my fingers flexible again! So I do try to pick up my guitar once a day if only to do some stretching exercises on the fret-board. The left hand is certainly taking some work, but I am happy to note that the finger-tips are hard once again.

I've also been working hard at revising my ability to read music and find the notes on the fret-board.... so I am re- learning a couple of classical pieces I used to be able to play. It is slowly coming back!

My next goal is to try and learn a few more chords so that I can increase my Folk-Song repertoire.....

So far I have mastered C A G E D F D7 G7 Bm7 - and I am just beginning to hold a Barré chord......Not bad for an oldie I suppose!!!!!